Trail Monster Running

Visit the official TRAIL MONSTER RUNNING website for information on upcoming group runs, local trails, trail races and more, including the Pineland Farms Trail Running Festival and the Bradbury Mountain trail Running Series.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Wife Carriers Beware

Emma and I went to Bradbury this morning to meet the TMR group, we actually never had any intention of running since we promised ourselves a complete week off after the 50 miler, but thought that a long walk would be good. The only other person to show up today was Lily with her sidekick Echo. Lily also felt more like walking than running so we did a nice long loop on the west side trails. Views from the top of Bradbury were spectacular and we could see out to Casco Bay and what I think is Bustins Island off the coast of Freeport.

The Boundary Trail has a lot of wet/flooded areas that need some work and even though we will not be able to make the trail maintenance day at the park tomorrow I plan to organize our own trail day to take care of a few bad spots on this trail. Some of the problems with flooding have to do with poor drainage but we were able to figure out ways to help improve the situation in several locations. I would also like to work on rebuilding some of the old stone walls along the Boundary Trail that have experienced rock migration over the years.

Afterwards we went to my parents house in Freeport to practice for the North American Wife Carrying Championships next weekend at Sunday River. My parents have a great yard with some gradual hills and we were able to set up a hurdle to practice climbing over. This will be our third year of participating in the Wife Carrying competition and I think it will be our best. We've mastered our carrying technique, developed a good race strategy and have practiced on the hurdles. Of course it's hard to compete against the professional cyclist or olympic skier who have won in recent years, so we don't expect to win, but it's definitely going to be fun.